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Changes coming January 1, 2024 for Monitor My Watershed users

Home › Forums › Monitor My Watershed › Changes coming January 1, 2024 for Monitor My Watershed users

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    • 2023-11-27 at 1:11 PM #18188
      Scott Ensign
      Participant

        Dear Monitor My Watershed User,

        Thank you for using and supporting the Monitor My Watershed Data Sharing Portal! To help cover our costs for offering this service (currently >$50,000 per year) and keeping it free for some users, we are implementing a payment plan for Monitor My Watershed. Subscription plan payments will be accepted starting January 1, 2024 through the Monitor My Watershed Shop. We understand that some users may need additional time to budget for this expense, so users may defer payment up until April 30, 2024.

        These changes do not apply to Leaf Pack Network or StreamWatch Schools users and their data.

        Please remember:

        • Monitor My Watershed Data Sharing Portal is owned by Stroud Water Research Center, a 501c(3) nonprofit organization, and payments will be received by the Stroud Center.
        • Payment will only be required for submitting data to Monitor My Watershed; data visualization and data download do not require payment.
        • 100% of your subscription goes toward covering our costs for offering this service.
        • We believe that the ultimate utility of Monitor My Watershed is the data we are building together for science and stewardship!

        Here are some frequently asked questions:

        Why are you asking me to pay? Subscriptions will cover Monitor My Watershed operating expenses, allowing us to fundraise for new features and enhanced functionality.

        I’m being asked to pay for the number of “active sites” I have. What’s an active site? An active site is a site that has been updated within the past 2 weeks; inactive sites are red on Monitor My Watershed.

        Will my data be deleted if I choose not to pay? No. Your historical data will continue to be accessible.

        Do I have to pay if I’m collecting data for an organization? Only if you are the organization’s primary contact. We are working with all organizations to establish a primary contact and authorized users list.

        How will I pay for my subscription? Subscriptions can be purchased by credit card from the Monitor My Watershed Shop.

        What if I need help using Monitor My Watershed? We will continue to provide updates and technical support in the Monitor My Watershed forum on EnviroDIY.

        Stroud Water Research Center and the Monitor My Watershed Development Team believe:

        • Open access to conscientiously collected environmental data supports scientific breakthroughs that improve environmental stewardship.
        • Easily findable and accessible environmental data benefits people seeking information, so we are pursuing integration with Internet of Water services.
        • Diversity of data portals serve different needs for accessing environmental data, so we provide interoperable data that can be used across all platforms using programming interfaces.
        • Data of known quality and documentation facilitates reuse by others, so we encourage and guide users on best practices for data collection and are pursuing data management features.

        The Stroud Center and our technology partner LimnoTech have been providing Monitor My Watershed free of charge while we built a solid foundation for growth and sustainability. We hope you value these features of Monitor My Watershed:

        • Easy to get started with simple how-to guides provided.
        • Instantly visualize your environmental data and take action.
        • Easily create customized graphs to analyze trends and share insights.
        • Works with any programmable data logger capable of making HTTP POST requests.
        • No need to worry about backing up data: it is permanently stored in an open source database.
        • Advertise your monitoring efforts and their legitimacy through customized notes and metadata.
        • Broaden the impact of your work by openly sharing your data using international standards.
        • Share questions and get help from users and moderators via community forum.

        Unlike other commercial IoT data services, Monitor My Watershed is built by scientists for scientists working together to address big environmental challenges and scientific questions. We are continuing to work with you, our stakeholders in Monitor My Watershed, to pursue grants and other support for add the features you’ve told us you want:

        • Improved interactive plotting features.
        • Manual entry and plotting of quality assurance field measurements.
        • Data quality control tools.
        • Data conversions.
        • Customized alerts and more.

        Thank you for your time and continued support of Monitor My Watershed. Please share your questions on this thread!

        Sincerely,
        the Monitor My Watershed Development Team

      • 2023-11-29 at 12:00 PM #18191
        Jule Schultz
        Participant

          I think it’s reasonable to pay for the hosting of these data, and the price structure allows small organizations to afford a few loggers.  Are you planning to allow or make it easier for subscribers to use their data in real time on their website (via either iframe or another method?).   This would allow us to more easily fundraise (for example, branding these stations with sponsors names).   Without the ability to post these data in real time on our website, it becomes more and more difficult to generate the interest (and funding) needed to keep the stations going.

           

        • 2023-11-30 at 3:18 PM #18198
          Jim Moore
          Participant

            Is there any chance to provide a finer price structure?  Perhaps a fixed amount (~$5) per station with some discount for larger quantities.  For example going from 3 to 4 stations would cost about four times as much per station!  Also I noticed that there is a price break for a full year subscription for the small plan but none for the medium and large plans.  I attached a spread sheet fyi.

            Attachments:
            1. MMW-Price-structure.xlsx
          • 2023-12-01 at 12:00 PM #18201
            Scott Ensign
            Participant

              @juleschultz – We certainly understand how valuable it is for Monitor My Watershed users to share their data on their own websites. While there isn’t a direct way to share Monitor My Watershed webpages, there are several ways to automate the data download process for reprocessing and posting your data in a separate service. First, you can retrieve a csv file of all of a parameter’s data by copying the url from that sensor’s observations page. Look for the cloud download button; the url will look like this (with a different result_id):

              https://monitormywatershed.org/api/csv-values/?result_id=5081

              There are more sophisticated methods for retrieving data using Monitor my Watershed’s Time Series Analyst endpoint. If you use Python, check out Sara Damiano’s GitHub Gist notebook for instructions.

              To share a link on your website to all of your organization’s sites use this link:

              https://monitormywatershed.org/browse/?organizations=Spokane%20Riverkeeper

              Modify this link for other use with other organizations using the release notes on GitHub.

            • 2023-12-01 at 12:19 PM #18202
              Scott Ensign
              Participant

                @w3asa – Thanks for sharing your thoughts on our subscription plan pricing structure. We arrived at this pricing structure after exploring all the options for most equitably distributing costs across the diverse community of users and organizations. We hope users appreciate the extra value that Monitor My Watershed provides in comparison to other for-profit commercial services. We value your participation in growing one of the largest environmental datasets in the world collected and shared using open source hardware and software!

              • 2023-12-20 at 9:25 AM #18263
                Paul Wilson
                Participant

                  Am I correct to assume that the payment page will open after the first? I tried to pay for 2024 now and got the message “This product is currently out of stock and unavailable.”.  Thanks.

                • 2023-12-20 at 8:36 PM #18264
                  neilh20
                  Participant

                    I’m very much a fan of ModularSensors and the discussion board as a place to be real with technical issues.   I do so appreciate the unique place EnviroDIY has been curated to be, to try some remote wireless terrestrial monitoring. Its the nitty gritty of environmental monitoring and the engineering it takes.   Its tough to find out what these services cost – so hope it works out.  I’ve contacted the funder of the project I’ve been in to let them know of the late changing conditions. On a commercial scale the initial entry is pretty low cost , but going to be expensive if  it scales.  I hope it  can keep up with the demanding changing technical bar.

                    There are some really nice features mentioned, though I’m curious as to whether this constitutes a “Service Level Agreement”, and is there a verification plan.

                    A critical technical statement  that is missing is the expected response from the server. Device POSTing is only as good as the servers response time.

                    There have been a couple of windowed losses in data storage on MMW and the subject doesn’t seem to be addressed-

                    https://github.com/ODM2/ODM2DataSharingPortal/issues/605 

                    https://github.com/ODM2/ODM2DataSharingPortal/issues/685

                    and I brought it up locally –  https://www.envirodiy.org/topic/mmw-lost-readings/

                    so curious how real-world issues are going to be addressed.  Many thanks. Neil

                  • 2023-12-21 at 8:19 AM #18265
                    Scott Ensign
                    Participant

                      @paulwilson Yes, the payment page for Monitor My Watershed subscriptions will begin accepting payments on 01 January 2024. Thank you for supporting Monitor My Watershed!

                    • 2023-12-28 at 8:30 AM #18279
                      Scott Ensign
                      Participant

                        @neilh20 Thanks for your questions. Please refer to the Terms of Use for details concerning use of Monitor My Watershed. @srgdamiano commented on the likely cause of missing data from September 26. We are continuing to improve Monitor My Watershed’s response time and performance; we will share details in early 2024.

                      • 2024-01-07 at 10:53 AM #18290
                        Jim Moore
                        Participant

                          I tried to sign in today to pay for the GMI medium plan at $49/mo.  The store doesn’t recognize any of my credentials.  Do I need a different account?

                          • 2024-01-07 at 11:07 AM #18291
                            Heather Brooks
                            Keymaster

                              Hi Jim, a shop account will be automatically created when you pay for a subscription and you’ll receive an email with your username and a link to reset the password. The shop account will allow you to manage and modify your subscription. Thanks for your support of Monitor My Watershed!

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